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John James Audubon was born in Les Cayes and moved to the USA as a boy. He became a well-known naturalist through his drawings of birds (I grew up on these). He had birds killed so he could study and draw them, including the now extinct passenger pigeon and Carolina parakeet. Today if he did that he would be run out of town (more likely, imprisoned), but in his day no one thought anything about it. Nevertheless, there is not much hate toward him. No one is protesting to rename New Orleans' Audubon Park (yet).

A lot of Louisianans (past and present) have Haitian roots. Louis Michot is a fiddler in the Cajun band, Lost Bayou Ramblers. His family-namesake ancestor, Michot, came to New Orleans from Haiti. Here he is explaining his family history and speaking Cajun French:

It's not like it did Haiti any good in the long run. It's slightly poorer than even Guatemala, and that's pretty damn poor. Guatemala is also looked down on by it's neighbors. It is in a similar boat as Haiti. .

For the record, Haiti is the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere. Honduras ranks second.

Jared Diamond's best-selling book "Collapse" has a chapter that explains the reasons for Haiti's extreme poverty.

1. Haiti was forced to compensate France billions of Francs for France's loss of slave labor, after independence. This enormous debt took generations to continually pay off and left the nation destitute.

2. The mountain range, separating the 2 countries, causes all the rain to fall on the Dominican side of the island. The Haitian side is left dry and bare. Haiti is 99% denuded of trees, which have all been cut down for charcoal fuel. The Dominicans, in contrast, used gasoline fuel obtained from Venezuela, rather than wood fuel. The Dominican side has vast preserved national forest/ national park areas.

3. The Dominicans always encouraged foreign investment, and managed their country better, while Haiti historically discouraged foreign contact, and managed its farms less efficiently and less democratically.

For the record, Haiti is the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere. Honduras ranks second.

Jared Diamond's best-selling book "Collapse" has a chapter that explains the reasons for Haiti's extreme poverty.

1. Haiti was forced to compensate France billions of Francs for France's loss of slave labor, after independence. This enormous debt took generations to continually pay off and left the nation destitute.

2. The mountain range, separating the 2 countries, causes all the rain to fall on the Dominican side of the island. The Haitian side is left dry and bare. Haiti is 99% denuded of trees, which have all been cut down for charcoal fuel. The Dominicans, in contrast, used gasoline fuel obtained from Venezuela, rather than wood fuel. The Dominican side has vast preserved national forest/ national park areas.

3. The Dominicans always encouraged foreign investment, and managed their country better, while Haiti historically discouraged foreign contact, and managed its farms less efficiently and less democratically.

That is obviously very terrible. Trujillo was known to be pretty brutal. Did he cross over into Haiti to cause problems there?

DR has never invaded the other side of the island. Of the two countries, the DR is the one that has always respected the border. This habit goes way back in time. In colonial times it was the French that continually crossed into the Spanish territory with intentions of taking over more land. The Spanish always maintaining within their limits, except once the Haitian Revolution was in swing when the Spanish government gave arms to many of the blacks and with them invaded the northern part of the then French territory, soon to become Haiti.

On the other hand, Haiti invaded the eastern part 8 times during much of the 1800’s, including a general massacre that the Haitian army made against the Dominicans in 1805. They even took many Dominican civilians as prisoners from each town along the way, after they burnt down each town. All the women and girls were raped. Some husbands and wives were tied to their beds and their homes lit on fire while they were still alive. Not even the churches were spared. Once in Cap Haitian, the survivors of the forced marches were given to the various military generals to basically become their personal slaves. The devastation that Dessalines left in the Dominican territory was so widespread and horrible, that to this very day his name is a blasphemy amonga many Dominicans, particularly the descendants of the survivors.

In most of the other invasions many innocent people were killed, especially in the four invasions that toon place between 1844 and 1856, but it never reached a widespread massacre attempt as was done in 1805. The material damage was much greater. All the towns, villages, and country homes the Haitian army passed by were burnt to the grown and whatever Dominicans caught along the way were murdered, even the poor rural country people that simply lived life to take care of their small farms and family.

2. The mountain range, separating the 2 countries, causes all the rain to fall on the Dominican side of the island. The Haitian side is left dry and bare. Haiti is 99% denuded of trees, which have all been cut down for charcoal fuel. The Dominicans, in contrast, used gasoline fuel obtained from Venezuela, rather than wood fuel. The Dominican side has vast preserved national forest/ national park areas.

While it is true that the Haitian side is generally drier than the Dominican side, most of Haiti wasn’t as dry as it is now. The reason for this is the mass deforestation that was done on that side.

I have read many reports written by visitors to Haiti in the 1800’s and 1900’s (I admit I have read way more reports of the Dominican side than of the Haitian) and up until the first half of the 20th century Haiti is described as a very lush place, with most of its mountains covered in a dense forest.

This leads me to believe that most of the deforestation took place in the 20th century, especially in the middle of that century.

For Haiti to had been as lush as many of those visitors described it, it needed to have much more rainfall than it gets in our times. The number of trees in a mountainous land does affects how much rainfall it gets. Today roughly 1% of Haiti is covered in forest and in many mountains the top soil has completely washed out, leaving the bare rock exposed. Many areas of Haiti are probably beyond the point of recovery if an attempt to reforest is put in place. That top soil is crucial to make a reforestation plan successful.

Many people blame the impoverished Haitian peasants from the countryside for deforesting the country, but I think most of it was done by powerful people that knew what they were doing and made millions from the chopped wood. Along many areas in the Dominican-Haitian border the Dominican forests end right at the border, which in many areas is marked by nothing more than an imaginary line. Initially those forests continued on the Haitian side of the border that now is almost devoid of trees. How exactly did those poor and illiterate Haitian peasants know where exactly to stop chopping to avoid an international conflict with the DR? Those farmers have never seen a map, so how did they know? The answer is that they didn’t do most of the deforestation, it was literate powerful people that knew how to read maps and how to measure land in order to know where to stop chopping. I wouldn’t be surprised if a few corrupt politicians were behind the scheme.

Haiti was poor because other countries France and the US actively worked to make sure it wasn't successful. France made Haiti pay for the war with billions and billions they didn't have forcing Haiti to stay in poverty. The US under Thomas Jefferson actively worked to block sugar from Haiti so it wouldn't be successful, and give ideas to other black people in the Americas. Haiti wasn't successful not due to itself, but to it's neighbors who didn't want it to be successful.

What is ironic is that if the Haitian Revolution didnít occur, France would have likely still held onto the land in the Louisiana Purchase and the United States as we now know it might not have existed. More on this: https://www.history.com/news/louisia...lave-rebellion

You always hear about *various* other groups bashing Haitians (not just singling out one group).

Overall, my experience with Haitians has been good. I have found most of them to be pleasant and very industrious. Here in NY, many are very hardworking, keep 2+ jobs and start their own small businesses to give their family a middle class lifestyle. Many of the women even make good livings in the medical field as nurses and such. Southeast Queens (and certain nearby suburban areas on Long Island) are known as the New York metro area's black middle class mecca and I would wager that Haitians are the largest group there. These are places with sky-high homeownership rates, strong property values, median household incomes that mostly exceed $90k, low to moderate crime and some of the suburban ones even have nicely rated school systems. They have played a huge role fueling that image and giving those places that honor.

Many Haitians contribute a lot to American society (beyond cheap expendable manual labor) unlike a lot of those in certain other immigrant groups; especially the ones whom are most known to bash them the most.

Fyi - I am not Haitian.

Haitians were only bashed by African Americans who basically bashed all immigrants, so much so that they used to pretend to be Jamaicans. The main reason is the way they arrive in other countries, mainly as poor refugees on small boats. People normally have a snobby attitude towards refugees. The fact that they are black and the sheer number of them eventually makes people want to push back.What has happened now is that Haitians finally started having some pride in their heritage, so they started bashing African Americans and creating a fake rivalry with Jamaicans to prop themselves up (A lot of the other nations in the Caribbean does this). What you are seeing now is another wave of Haitian bashing because many feel that they are getting way too arrogant, and many don't think they have earned the right to be arrogant and snobby. If you're an outsider(white person or other) it's easy to feel pity for Haitians and try to find all the positive things to say about them, but of you spend time around them especially the Americanized ones you may feel differently.

There was time that a lot of English speaking West Indians used to get into nursing, but now there's a trend in the Haitian community where nursing is now the thing to do. So what we have now is that nursing is not paying as much as it used to because way too many Haitians are getting into that field, they get blamed for that.

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